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22 February 2019

Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.

The ultimate, definitive Best Albums Of 2016

The last batch of votes are in so we can now proclaim the AnyDecentMusic definitive summary of the Best Albums Of 2016 lists.

We've compiled the rankings from all those magazines, newspapers
and websites among our sources which publish their albums of the
year. The end result is a comprehensive reflection of the critical
favourites of the year. It's the ultimate, definitive "Best of the
Best Albums of 2016" chart.

So here's the rundown of the top 50 albums of the year as seen
by music reviewers in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Ireland and
New Zealand.

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1876 David Bowie Blackstar

1506 BeyonceLemonade

1448 RadioheadA Moon
Shaped Pool

1402 Frank Ocean Blonde

1165 SolangeSeat At The
Table

1117 Angel Olsen My Woman

1076Bon
Iver22, A Million

1071 Nick Cave And The Bad
SeedsSkeleton Tree

1058AnohniHopelessness

951 Kanye WestThe
Life Of Pablo

899 A Tribe Called
QuestWe
Got It From Here...

877 Chance The
RapperColoring
Book

858 Danny BrownAtrocity Exhibition

823 Leonard CohenYou
Want It Darker

721MitskiPuberty 2

703 Car Seat HeadrestTeens
of Denial

626 Jenny HvalBlood
Bitch

620 Blood OrangeFreetown
Sound

558 Anderson .PaakMalibu

488 SkeptaKonnichiwa

467 RihannaANTI

459 The 1975I Like It When
You Sleep...

430Kaytranada99.9%

426Kendrick
Lamaruntitled
unmastered

426 The
AvalanchesWildflower

375Christine and the
QueensChaleur Humaine

373Parquet
CourtsHuman
Performance

359Savages
Adore Life

346
WhitneyLight Upon The Lake

345Margo
PriceMidwest Farmer's
Daughter

339Sturgill
SimpsonA Sailor's Guid

320
Michael
KiwanukaLove &
Hate

306James
BlakeThe Colour in
Anything

297Iggy
PopPostPop Depression

293Drive-By
TruckersAmerican
Band

275Anna
MeredithVarmints

253Young
ThugJeffery

248PJ
HarveyThe Hope Six Demolition
Project

223Hamilton Leithauser +
RostamI Had A
Dream...

221PinegroveCardina

214Kate
TempestLet Them Eat
Chaos

198LambchopFLOTUS

194Nicolas Jaar
Sirens

189KingWe
Are King

187 Jessy Lanza Oh No

182 PreoccupationsPreoccupations

181 Paul SimonStranger to Stranger

174 Glass AnimalsHow to Be a Human
Being

171 case/lang/veirscase/lang/veirs

163 Let's Eat GrandmaI,
Gemini

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Last year, our all time highest rated album ended up top of the
ADM Poll of Polls. Surprise! It's unlikely another release will
ever beat the 9.3 rating Kendrick Lamar received
for To Pimp A Butterfly, so our sources awarded it with the title
of Best Album of 2015.

Even though you'd be forgiven for feeling like David
Bowie's award this year was a similar foregone conclusion,
you'd also be wrong. Don't worry about being wrong though, we just
said we'd forgive you.

Bowie's convincing victory in the end of year Best Ofs is
without doubt an impressive achievement. Firstly, Blackstar was
released all the way back in January. The 8th to be exact. That's
ages ago. And if you think the album is getting special treatment
from the end of year decision makers because of Bowie's untimely
death, remember: it was 2016. This isn't even the only time that
happened.

Since we began collating this award, only twice has an album
released in the first quarter gone on to be considered the Best Of
the year by our sources. That was 2009 and 2011. Can anyone guess
what albums that wou-actually, let's not get carried away.
Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion and
PJ Harvey's Let England Shake were both considered
the Best Album Of The Year despite their early-year release. And
now Bowie too. Recency bias be damned.

The rest of the Top 10 also makes interesting reading.
Beyonce and Solange show that
Knowles really is power by taking two spots in the top 5, while
Nick Cave languishes in 8th despite an ADM average
rating of 8.9. Radiohead also managed to buck a
trend to become the only band in a Top 10 dominated by solo
artists.

Taking a step back, it was not a great year for newcomers.
Anohni's Hopelessness in 9th place is technically
a debut for the artist under a new moniker, and
Kaytranada's 99.9% is technically his first studio
release after a number of mix-tapes; it'd be unfair to classify
either of those artists as a newcomer. You have to look as deep as
Christine and the Queens in 27th to find a "proper
new" artist.

So what does this mean? Well, a quick glance at the top shows
that this was the year for well-established artists taking stock
and putting out thoughtful, detailed and soulful albums. And
critics being more than happy to reward such musings at the end of
the year. No matter when the album was released.

SOURCES:American
Songwriter, AV Club, All Music, Beardfood, Clash (40-21),
Consequence Of Sound, Crack, The Digital Fix, Digital Spy, Drowned
In Sound, Earbuddy, Exclaim, Faster Louder, GigSoup, God Is In The
TV, The Guardian, The Independent, The Irish Times, The Line Of
Best Fit, Mojo, The Observer, Q, The Quietus, NME, Loud &
Quiet, musicOMH, No Ripcord, NOW, Paste, Pitchfork, Pop Matters,
Pretty Much Amazing, Resident Advisor, Rolling Stone, The Skinny,
Slant, Spin, Tiny Mixed Tapes, Uncut, The 405.
(50pts are awarded to the album named No.1, 49pts to the No.2 and
so on. If any of our sources don't post a numerical list then all
available points are shared equally)